


Big Decisions

by Cim0rene



Series: Wheel of the Year [3]
Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cim0rene/pseuds/Cim0rene
Summary: A New Year's Eve date goes a little too well, and that's the problem
Relationships: Jareth/Sarah Williams
Series: Wheel of the Year [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008537
Comments: 14
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

_**Thunk.** _

_**Thunk.** _

Sarah Williams was quite the sight as she stood outside of her apartment rhythmically banging her head against the door. Her keys were in the lock and her high-heeled shoes were looped around her fingers. Like many in the city at this hour in the morning on New Year's Day, she wore a formal little dress, a dark emerald green with a square neck and an open back and a little slit traveling up one leg. Her winter coat hung off one shoulder and there was definitely a run in her pantyhose slowly traveling up from her left toe.

However, unlike most people in the city who were currently either reeling from or still getting started on their first bad decision of the new year (which was decidedly not the same as last years bad decision, thank you very much), Sarah had no reason to regret anything of the past evening, which had been nearly perfect.

And that, of course, was the problem.

_**Thunk.** _

With the last solid thwack of her head on the decorative molding on her door, Sarah could hear the door down the hall open. She tilted her head enough to see solid, little Mrs. Watson standing in her doorway backlit by the glow of late-night television.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Watson,” she moaned, her relationship with her elderly neighbor was tenuous at best. “I’ll be going in momentarily.”

Mrs. Watson did not reply as Sarah peeled her forehead from the door until Sarah’s hand was on the doorknob and she cleared her throat, “Well what’ll it be? Peppermint or Chamomile?”

Sarah paused and looked at the old woman, who had her arms crossed and a no-nonsense look on her face. “I’m… I’m sorry... What?”

“What type of tea do you want girl? I’d offer you the Barry’s, but that’ll keep you up at this point. So what’ll it be?”

“Oh, no that’s not necessary,” Sarah began.

“Of course it is. Do you think just because I’m old I can’t recognize a woman who needs a good cup of tea to sort herself out? There’s no confusion a man can put in your head that nice cup of tea can’t straighten out.”

“What? No. That is… there’s no… he’s not… I’m…”

Mrs. Watson starred in the way perfected by all top military officially, midwives, and elementary school teachers the world over with the type of look that definitely said “You seem to be under the impression that was a question” and Sarah, recognizing that look, immediately set her heels on the ground with a soft thud, “Chamomile would be lovely.”

“Hm,” Mrs. Watson humphed as she turned away leaving Sarah to wonder if she had picked right or wrong as she followed the woman into her apartment.

Mrs. Watson’s apartment was just what Sarah had expected and she felt immediately transported into her Grandmother's ranch home circa 1981. There was parquet in the kitchen and an industrial, gleaming stand mixer on the counter, accented with avocado green which picked up the colors of the mushroom cook jars on the counter. Sarah had a sudden interest in discovering Mrs. Watsons Pyrex dishware pattern. 

Mrs. Watson gestured for Sarah to sit at the Formica table (avocado green and gold flecks with matching immaculate plastic padded chairs). Sarah peaked into the living room as the woman bustled about in the kitchen and smiled, the harvest gold and brown floral patterned couch was pristine and complete with plastic fabric savers on the armrests and rested on a mottled burnt orange shag carpet. The two knobbed television sets, which looked sturdy enough to be used as a blockade against a tank, hummed lowly with overly quaffed late night shopping hostesses. She had spent her childhood running her hands through a carpet like that as she watched Sesame Street on a very similar television, it all made her feel very at home.

A cup of tea on a saucer appeared in front of Sarah as Mrs. Watson hobbled over the seat opposite from her, the plastic seat squeaking as the old woman made herself comfortable. Mrs. Watson adjusted her pink floral housecoat before taking a long sip of tea. Sarah followed suit, not knowing if she should start apologizing for the turnip-lanterns or the Christmas hallway incident first.

“So, man problems I see,” Mrs. Watson began suddenly causing Chamomile tea up Sarah’s nose.

“What?” Sarah set her teacup down swiftly, “No, it’s not that … it's… just…”

“My dear, I have lived a long, long time, and believe me when I say no one becomes their own midnight doorway rhythm section for a man who’s not a problem.” The elementary teacher look was back and Sarah acquiesced.

“Well, maybe a little problematic,” and she took another sip of tea.

“I take it you were out with this problematic man tonight?” Sarah nodded. “And who is this person, not perhaps the gentleman you tussled with before Christmas? Didn’t like the look of that one. Cocky reminds me of my good for nothing great-nephew.”

Sarah looked away, “Well, yes, him. He’s an old… acquaintance and we just recently got back in contact. I knew him a long time ago you see.”

“Hm. An ex-boyfriend?”

“No,” Sarah said quickly. “Goodness no. We knew each other, briefly, when I was a teenager. He was older than me, and honestly a bit of a jerk, self-centered and kind of petty and I always assumed he never gave me a second thought, but we ran into each other at a… party this fall and have been getting to know each other again and…” she trailed off.

“And he’s exactly what you remember him to be?”

“Yes,” Sarah admitted as the woman made a noncommittal noise and sipped her tea, “And no.”

Mrs. Watson arched an eyebrow.

“He’s definitely what I remember… proud and a little mischievous and yes, definitely cocky.”

“The pretty ones always are my dear.”

Sarah laughed at the woman’s serious tone. “But, it’s different. I only knew him while he was working the first time and I think that might have shown me a different side of him. Getting to know him now…” she trailed off, not seeing the smile Mrs. Watson caught on to immediately.

“So,” Mrs. Watson said changing the subject. “So this man from your past is the one you stepped out with tonight? Did it go wrong from the start? Let me guess; was he late? Forgot to bring flowers perhaps- never trust a man who forgets flowers, my dear, nothing good comes of them. I learned that with husband number one. Did he spend all the time preening and not compliment your dress or your hair? That’s exactly what my great-nephew would do if he were in your gentleman’s shoes, that vainglorious vagabond.”

“Oh no, it was nothing like that though… between the two of us that’s kind of what I expected,” Sarah said as she leaned in conspiratorially towards the woman.

“Your secret is safe with me. It never does good to have high expectations of the pretty ones. I made that mistake with my third husband.”

Sarah had expected the worst, in fact, she had a bottle of wine sitting handy on the kitchen table in case he never showed up, to begin with, but he had. She had expected that he would appear standing on her coffee in a torrential downpour of magical glitter in an outfit that was neither discrete nor from the last three centuries. She had expected him to be aloof or unimpressed by her simple evening dress and her home done hairdo and drug store makeup. She had expected it to start badly. But it hadn’t; he had knocked, actually knocked, on her front door precisely at eight. He wore a sharp, well-tailored suit in a deep blue she had noticed with a smile and a thin tie knotted loosely under his collar. He looked human, though Mrs. Watson would probably agree, stupidly pretty. His hair was trimmed and fell loosely around his ears and his face had lost some of the harsh fae lines and she was relieved to see that he had forgone a matching eyeshadow palette of his own. His mismatched eyes were the same though and they widened when they took her in as he passed her a bouquet of flowers that were as beautiful as they were non-lethal or magical. He had drawn in a quick breath and smiled sincerely as he complimented her in a way that definitely had not stirred a bundle of butterflies in her stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

“Well, if he didn’t mess up the beginning of the date, then he must have mucked up the middle. Did he make you take the subway? Did he skimp on dinner? Drink too much? If he’s anything like my no good great-nephew he probably talked only about himself during the entire evening. Never trust a man who can only talk about himself, I made that mistake with husband number seven,” Mrs. WAtson sagely advised as she topped off Sarah’s teacup. “And never trust a man who won’t talk about himself, that was husband number five.”

“No, it wasn’t that,” Sarah insisted. “There was a private taxi and this lovely bistro on the eastside that I had never heard of before. The food was delicious and he was a perfect gentleman.” Sarah had had the number of a taxi on hand in case dinner had gone south, but two hours later she had forgotten about the sheet of the yellow pages she had tucked into her handbag. The dinner had been perfect and the wine he had chosen was perfect, just the right blend for a bottle to be savored throughout the meal. They had spent the first part of the meal awkwardly trading small talk, but he had deftly brought the conversation around as he asked about her - her life, her time at school, and her adventures in the years between their meetings. He laughed heartily as she told him stories of Toby growing up and listened seriously as she talked of her dreams to be a writer. He added his own conversation here and there, a story, a quip to keep the conversation going and it wasn’t until he helped her into her coat at the end of the meal did she realize how much talking she had done. 

As they walked down the sidewalk she had peppered him with questions of her own. He opened up slowly, stopping now and then only when a crowd of people got too close. He told her of his childhood, his parents who were dead, and an Aunt of whom he spoke of in hushed tones glancing over his shoulder. He told animated stories of his own adventures in the Labyrinth, like the time someone an entire legion of Roman soldiers had shown up on his doorstep(“ _What did I do with them? Nothing! No one ever came for them and to my knowledge, they’re still out in the hedge maze to this day… maybe I should look into that”_ ) or Sir Didymus’ far unsuccessful attempts to increase local tourism to the Bog of Eternal Stench ( _“I keep telling him that the goblins prefer their trips to the Bog to be entirely spontaneous in nature, but he insists that we should build a caravan park.”_ ) She had listened quietly as he spoke of his kingdom with such pride, even as he insisted that his ruled over “kingdom of idiots and inebriates.”

Mrs. Watson set down her teacup seriously, steepling her fingers together and resting her chin as she spoke, “Well that is most surprising. So it was at the end of the evening. Did he take you to some den of iniquity? Was he too forward?” She reached out and took Sarah’s hand suddenly, “He didn't ask you to marry him, did he? My great-nephew did that once… idiot. Never marry a man who proposes too early… I made that mistake with husband number two and never marry a man who proposes too late, that was the problem with husband number nine.”

“Mrs. Watson, how many husbands have you had?”

“Too many and not enough, my dear, but this isn’t about me. What did your gentleman do to ruin such a nice evening.”

“Nothing.” Mrs. Watson looked skeptical. “The rest of the evening was lovely. We walked around the parking nearby - the one with the new art installation. We talked about our favorites and listened to a street musician play Christmas tunes on a saxophone. We even danced. It was wonderful.”

It was a wonderful and wonderful end to the evening. Jareth had preferred a sculpture made of twisted tree branches that changed images as you moved around it. Sarah had preferred one made of a hundred glass balloons. She had admired him as they stood under a canopy of Christmas lights as a man who seemed neither young or old played jazz on a shiny saxophone. She ignored those butterflies as the musician had begun playing a hauntingly smooth version of Auld Lang Syne and Jareth had a stretch out a gloved hand to ask her for a dance and there they danced on the street corner to saxophone music as Jareth sang softly in her ear while the new year came and went.

“And then?” Mrs. Watson interjected.

“And then we came home. We said our goodbyes on the front step and I came inside… and then you found me in the hallway.”

“Well my dear, I am at a loss. I thought I would be consoling a young girl in the midst of heartache, but you’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening.”

“And that’s the problem,” Sarah blurted out in spite of herself. “It was supposed to all go wrong - it was supposed to be obvious that this was a mistake and that I should just move on and forget his pretty hair and tight pants and the fact that he smells really, really good. But it didn’t and I wasn’t prepared for it to go well! So I stood there like an idiot and made him shake my hand as I rambled about work and late nights and early morning and I ran inside and shut the door in his face and now…ugh…”

Sarah’s head fell to the cool Formica tabletop and rattled the teacups.

“You, my dear, are as stupid as my great-nephew.” Sarah lifted her head up, not sure how to take this sudden berating from her geriatric tea companion. “He does the same thing, gets all worked up, all wrapped up in his own head, and mucks up a perfectly good relationship by thinking too much. Well, my dear, I’ve been through nine husbands, each as ridiculous as the last and I’ll tell you this… you’re about to mess this up.”

“But what, am I supposed to do? I don’t know what I think-”

“And that’s the problem, stop thinking so much and just go.”

Sarah couldn’t believe the fervor in the little woman's voice, “But what if I-”

Mrs. Watson hopped off her chair taking the space between them in a single, surprisingly agile stride until they were almost nose to nose,” But what if you don’t? Hm?”

She suddenly had Sarah’s coat in her arms and was bustling her out the door. Sarah was standing, shoeless in the hallway as she turned around to Mrs. Watson’s door. The little woman stood in her pink house dress, hands on her hips as she said simply, “Go”, as the door shut between them.

Sarah stood bewildered for a moment before, without a thought, she scooped up her shoes, and with surprising agility managed to slip on her heels as she took the stairs two at a time. She wasn’t sure where she was going or what she was doing. She knew he wouldn’t be standing on the stoop of her apartment still, but perhaps. She walked quickly, the cold biting her bare legs past revealers on their way to or from this year's first bad decision until she found herself in the park, still lit up with thousands of fairy lights. She looked around, not sure what she was expecting when she heard the smooth saxophone sound floating in the air.

She followed the sound, her heels clicking sharply on the pavements until she found the man still playing his songs, and there in front of him, blond hair waving in a small winter breeze, dressed in a suit the color of midnight stood Jareth. He turned toward her as she stopped a few feet away and they stood in awkward silence, save for the musician in his own zone behind them.

He broke the silence first, “Sarah, I’m sorry. I don’t know… I just wanted to…” he sighed, his shoulders slumping, “I think that…”

She closed the gap between them in a moment and they were hairsbreadth away from each other. She could feel the warmth of him, smell that scent of honeysuckle and cedar as she tilted her head up to his and caught those strange eyes. “You… I …. We… we think too much.”

And she kissed him, gently, tentatively at first and pulled back when he made no move to kiss her back suddenly worried she had made the first bad decision of the new year when suddenly she felt the leather of his gloves on her cheek, saw the smile on his face and lost herself completely as he returned her kiss and the butterflies inside her burst free and she forgot the world around her.

And there under the fairy lights in a garden, they made their first good decision of the new year. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes we are talking about *that* missing Roman Legion. ;)


	3. Epilogue

Mrs. Watson, complete in a pink floral house dress, walked out of her bedroom in time to see the person who looked like Mrs. Watson shut the door and locked the bolt.

Mrs. Watson, the real Mrs. Watson, yawned as she apologized, “Oh my dear I’m afraid I must have dozed off. How did it go?”

Mrs. Watson watched as her doppelganger in the kitchen stretched herself and ran her fingers through her hair, and where she did so the hair turned from white to strawberry blonde and lengthened until it fell to the woman's waist. She shook out the pink floral house dress and as rippled and waved it turned into a dress of fine silk. The doppelganger ran her hands over her face and the lines erased and there stood a woman, ageless and beautiful and definitely not human.

“Well,” the new woman replied, “you were right to contact me when you did, Macha, before my dolt of a great-nephew could muck it up again. You’d think for a boy who had his mother's charms and his father's fair features he’d be a bit less of an idiot about all of this.”

“Ah well, the pretty ones always are,” Mrs. Watson said solemnly.

“Precisely what I told the girl.”

“So you approve?”

The Fae woman’s eyes, mismatched like her great-nephews, lit up, “Oh most definitely old friend. She is exactly what he needs. He was foolish to muck up the first time - with his love songs and overly dramatic marriage proposals without realizing that the marriageable age has changed considerably over the last few centuries. What an idiot.”

Mrs. Watson clucked again, “They pretty ones always are. If I remember correctly that was the issue with husbands number six, four, and, well, most of them. But this wonderful news you know I was worried he was up to his old trickery again when I saw them last month. Care for some tea?”

The Fae lady laughed at the old woman's forthrightness.

“I think I have already drunk more than my share of your tea my friend. I must return before anyone notices I’m gone.”

Aine, bent over and kissed the old woman on the cheek, “Keep an eye on them for me will you old friend?”

Mrs. Watson nodded, “Of course, of course,” as she opened her living room window, and Aine, Queen of the Underground, flew off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will admit, in the beginning, I had no idea who Mrs. Watson would turn out to be... and then this happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, I really hoped to have this closer to the actual New Year, but alas the story escaped me until recently. Here's to the next spoke of the Wheel.


End file.
